(Paris) Russian President Vladimir Putin is “in denial” and in a “completely revisionist justification” of the war in Ukraine, said Monday the head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian on BFMTV.
Posted yesterday at 4:44 p.m.
In a speech to celebrate the anniversary of the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany, the Russian president said Monday that his army was fighting in Ukraine to defend “the fatherland” against an “unacceptable threat”.
“It’s a kind of confinement of Putin in the war,” said Mr. Le Drian. The Russian president “is in denial. It is in the completely revisionist justification of the reasons for war. He has a speech of denial and reversal of responsibilities, ”he insisted.
Photo STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN, Agence France-Presse archives
The head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian
“There is nothing new” after the speech of the Russian president during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow, estimated Mr. Le Drian.
The Russian aggression continues, the war continues, the war objectives are the same, be it the neutralization of Ukraine, its demilitarization, its denazification, the recovery of the territories… It has not changed.
the head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian
Mr. Le Drian underlined the Russian President’s “error in overall assessment” of the situation in Ukraine, believing that Mr. Putin had made “four strategic errors”, by underestimating the Ukrainian resistance, the European response, the solidarity within the Atlantic Alliance, and by “overestimating” its army.
These elements “result in the implementation of a war which will be long, difficult”, declared Mr. Le Drian. “It could mean a war of several years,” he added.